Say It Ain't So, Joe

Last night, on Larry King Live, a well-known American politician uttered the following statement:

"I am very optimistic about -- about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government."

So who said it? Surely it had to be a member of the former administration, which was solely responsible for implementing the surge strategy that has allowed us to leave Iraq honorably and, most importantly, victoriously. Perhaps it was George W. Bush, who has remained largely out of the spotlight over the past year?

But no. It was a vice president who said it.

Oh, so it must have been Dick Cheney! Yeah! He's been out and about, making waves, giving interviews, challenging the Obama administration every step of the way. Good old Richard Cheney, that devil, going on Larry King to stroke his ego, to reflect upon his legacy...

Wait, what's that you say? It wasn't Dick Cheney? Seriously???

Oh. Wait a second.

Oh no.

No. Not possible. You can't be serious...

Noooooooooooooooo...

The individual who made this remark was... current VP Joe Biden.

Now, please indulge me for a second here and let me borrow Sarah Palin's line from the vice presidential debate: "Say it ain't so, Joe!"

To make a claim like Biden made last night, you either have to a) believe Americans are politically ignorant fools or b) be approaching senility. Or both.

Look. I'm sure I'm not the only person who remembers then-Senator Joe Biden's plan for Iraq. Biden, who was touted as a smart VP for Barack Obama since he supposedly had "foreign policy experience," proposed partitioning the nation of Iraq into three regions along ethnic/religious lines. It was a breathtakingly silly plan that was fraught with problems, and the Bush administration thankfully rejected it.

Even if I am one of the few who recalls Biden's strategy (if you can even call it a strategy), surely most Americans remember Barack Obama's position on the surge. Need a reminder? In 2007, he said, "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse." He opposed the surge and voted against the funding for it- a stand that was principled but completely wrong.

And yet, instead of candidly admitting his error- something His Arrogance clearly does not do well, if he's indeed even capable of doing it at all- Obama steadfastly refused time and again to acknowledge the surge's success.

Even today, President Obama can't talk about Iraq without a petty poke in the eye of the previous administration (see his not-so-veiled shot at Bush in the Nobel acceptance speech). What's worse, Barack Obama can't even bring himself to say the word "win" or "victory" when discussing Iraq (or even Afghanistan, but that's a different story), preferring instead to talk coolly about "bringing the troops home" (see his recent State of the Union address).

Remember: Joe Biden and Barack Obama belong to the party whose Senate Majority Leader memorably announced in the spring of 2007 that "this war is lost." Biden and Obama were both senators at the time, and they both fit squarely into the Harry Reid Defeatist Camp.

We all know Barack Obama likes to talk about "audacity": the audacity of hope, the audacity to dream of a post-partisan America...but last night, Joe Biden took audacity to a whole new level. And it wasn't pretty.

Say it ain't so, Joe.